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FREDERICK H. LATTERNER, M. D. 



Medical 

Problems 
Explained 



By 
FREDERICK H. LATTERNER, M. D 



FROM THE PRESS OF 

HARMEGN1ES & HOWELL, Chicago 









Copyright, iyoy 

By 

FREDERICK H. LATTERNER 



•:■ 



2 4 3 6 5 7 




TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 

The Existing- Medical Situation . 5 

The Germ Theory 7 

Cellular Pathology 10 

Plant Life 10 

How Energy is Stored in Pood 11 

The Respiratory Food Theory 17 

The Vito-Motive Power 19 

Carbon Dioxide Gas 21 

Cell Structure 23 

Nutrition and Elimination 25 

Blood Corpuscles 28 

The Theory of Muscular Contraction 34 

The Origin of Animal Heat 37 

The Musculo — Mechanical and the 

Toxico — Vivifical Paradoxes 40 

The Laws of Life 46 

Practical Suggestions 49 

The Blood, its component parts 53 

The Cell Theory 55 

The White Corpuscle, a Mortuous Corpusculum 56 

The Source of All Infection 57 

Pathogen 60 

Diabetes Mellitus 65 

Bright 's Disease 66 

Locomotor Ataxia 69 

The Germ Theory Explained 71 

Infection and Immunization 74 

Nervous Debility, a misnomer 78 

Cancer 80 

Diseases of the Circulatory System 81 

Pulmonary Consumption 87 

Purpura Variolosa 91 

General Treatment Outlined 94 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



INTRODUCTION 

The most important lessons to be derived from the 
annals of scientific discovery is to the effect that in any 
attempt to unravel the mysteries of nature we must push 
onr investigations from the domain of the phenomenal 
into that of the fundamental — from the realm of facts 
and occurrences, into that of Forces and Principles — and 
that this eventuates in the Simplification as well as ex- 
planation of the facts of experience and observation. 

Newton pushed his investigations to the extent of 
discovering that all the facts and occurrences of the 
physical realm, from the flowing of the terrestrial rivers 
to the journeyings of the heavenly bodies, are produced 
by a single fundamental principle, called Gravitation. 
By following a similar course, Dalton discovered that 
all chemical phenomena is produced by a single agency, 
called Chemical Affinity. For a long space of time 
scientists claimed that all things may be divided into 
two things — matter and energy — but of late they have 
gone to the extreme of asserting that these two are 
resolvable into one, the i6n. In short, all scientific 
experience may be reduced to aphorismic proportions 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



by saying : Scientific discovery tends to simplify matters 
by disclosing a single agency, or at most, a few of such, 
as the basis for a wide range of complex and apparently 
diverse phenomena. By proceeding in harmony with 
these scientific examples, the writer has succeeded in 
reducing the problems of Health and Disease to their 
lowest terms, in that he has discovered, as he verily 
believes : 1. That the Living Organism owes its every 
movement, whether of health or disease, to a Single 
form of Energy — The Vitomotive Force — which evinces 
its capability by possessing, by its maximum efficiency, 
the enormous dynamic equivalent of Six Hundred Pounds 
to the square inch. 

2. That all diseases are One Disease and that this is 
attributable to a Single Cause — that long known, yet 
unknown quantity in the etiological equation to which 
the "susceptibility" of the body to Infection has been 
attributed, but not explained, by medical authorities. 

FREDERICK H. LATTERNER, M. D. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



CHAPTER I. 

THE EXISTING SITUATION 

AN APPALLING AND RAPIDLY INCREASING PRE- 
VALENCE OF THE INSIDIOUS AND SUP- 
POSEDLY INCURABLE DISEASES. 

Certain diseases of the kidneys, heart and nervous 
system have not only become fearfully prevalent, but 
have so completely baffled the various measures com- 
monly employed in such cases that it has come to be gen- 
erally believed in medical circles that a cure is practically, 
if not utterly, impossible. Hence, if a man's heart becomes 
irregular, excitable or painful; or if the blood ruslies to his 
brain at intervals; or if his extremities be unsteady and the 
seat of lancinating pains; or if his urine be laden with 
sugar, or albumen, or tube-casts, and especially if there be 
any pain or tenderness in the region of the kidneys, and a 
puffiness here and there of the tissues, he is either left to 
draw his own conclusions as to his prospects, or else gently 
informed by his medical adviser that nothing more than 
temporary relief is to be expected — a declaration which is in 
mercy avoided, when possible, for it is eminently calculated 
to send the average individual in the direction of the grave 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



and with a constantly accelerating speed. In other words, 
the world is laboring under the crushing conviction that the 
individual who has drifted into the toils of diabetes, or 
Bright 's disease, or heart disease, or locomotor ataxia, or is 
exhibiting the symptoms of impending paralysis, apoplexy, 
epilepsy or chorea (commonly called St. Vitus dance), is 
beyond the pale of a radical cure and that dependence must 
therefore be placed upon palliative measures. 

THE KEY TO THE SITUATION. 

Now it is the peculiar mission of this book to call atten- 
tion to the well demonstrated fact that, by reason of a most 
extensive study of vital phenomena, normal and abnormal, 
the writer has obtained the Key to this unfortunate situa- 
tion and that it consists of a definite knowledge of the funda- 
mentals of health and disease and the consequent ability, 
not only to detect a variety of complications which are so 
completely masked that they have almost invariably escaped 
detection, but to devise a combination of measures, medici- 
nal, electrical, mechanical, manual and regiminal, consti- 
tuting a system of treatment of sufficient scope, flexibility 
and effectiveness to meet the requirements of the above 
named diseases, and by reducing the solid or semi-solid 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



matter on whose obstructive action the morbid process de- 
pends, to a perfectly liquid and therefore dialyzable state, 
in which condition it is easily discharged through the nat- 
ural outlets — the skin, liver, kidneys and bowels. 

The removal of the matter in question enables the only 
physician extant, the vis medicatrix naturae, to repair the 
injuries that the various organs have sustained, the ulti- 
mate result being the attainment of the otherwise unattain- 
able-namely, abounding health. 

The diseases in question have baffled the ordinary meth- 
ods of treatment for centuries, and because the morbid 
material on which the problematic diseases in general have 
been found to depend, is not only insoluble in the systemic 
fluids and in water of any quality or temperature, but im- 
bedded in the capillaries, follicles, glands and interstitial 
spaces of the internal or deep-seated organs. 

THE GERM THEORY. 

The Germ Theory of disease rests upon the following 
superstructure: (1) The science of Bacteriology; (2) Pre- 
ventive Medicine; (3) Antiseptic Surgery; (4) Anti-Bacte- 
rial Therapeutics. AVe know from microscopical examina- 
tions that germs are present in certain diseases, also that 
certain pathognomonic symptoms are produced in a patient. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



indicating to the physician the special kind of germ pro- 
ducing the typical symptoms, and while the symptoms of 
many diseases are due to the action of certain discovered 
organisms, in many cases, such as Cancer, where a germ has 
not been discovered, the claim is often made, nevertheless, 
that it is due to a germ. Facts without prinicples to ex- 
plain them are essentially misleading — a correct theory must 
possess the underlying principles and as a false theory is 
applied in nature as "demonstration by occlusion," it shows 
that we approach truth upon the stepping stones of error. 
The secret of the estrangement and loss of popular confi- 
dence and appreciation in medicine as practiced today, is 
the large fatality of many diseases, as evidenced by the in- 
ability of the germicides to stamp out diseases known to be 
associated with bacteria. Susceptibility and a suitable soil 
are essential in an individual for germs to obtain a foot- 
hold and propagate, and the soil upon which infection 
depends is not the body itself, but something essentially 
foreign thereto, evidenced by the fact that a patient is 
exposed to infection and escapes, while at another time 
upon only slight exposure becomes infected, and as a cer- 
tain pabulum or soil is necessary in an individual for germs 
to propagate, then is it not reasonable to suppose that some- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



thing paves the way for the germs, and that they are the 
lesser of the two causes? 

All life is due to energy: (1) Heat; (2) Nervous 
Power; (3) Muscular Energy. The current teaching im- 
plies that the motility of the primordial animal cell, 
or white blood corpuscle, explains the vital activity, or 
muscular energy, and if so, what is the moving power, 
how does it set the vital machinery in motion, and what 
rules obtain in the development of the same? I intend 
to show that the Respiratory Food Hypothesis, the Nitro- 
genous Food Theory and the Cell Theory are all erroneous. 
The Respiratory Food Hypothesis owes its existence to the 
fact that Carbo-Hydrates and Hydro-Carbons contain the 
combustible materials. Carbon and Hydrogen. The Nitro- 
genous Food Theory claims that the Nitrogenous balance 
can only be maintained by rebuilding the tissues destroyed 
with food rich in Nitrogen — so we give meats, eggs, cheese, 
cereals and legumes — the ingestion of which also increases 
the number of leucocytes. The Cell Theory teaches that 
every living thing is an aggregation of cells and that the 
leucocyte is the primordial animal cell. The Leucocyte 
sends forth and withdraws its tentacles and is composed of 
either bioplasm, cytoplasm, protoplasm, blastema, sarcode 
and germinal matter, and is the physical basis of all life. 



10 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

CELLULAR PATHOLOGY. 

Professor Virchow, the originator, says that all patho- 
logical changes are due to an abnormal increase of the num- 
ber of the cellular elements — meaning the white blood cor- 
puscle, and the retrograde metamorphosis of the same is 
attributed to the presence of toxines in the blood, hence it 
has been deemed a very serious matter that the basic cell of 
life is destroyed. During the past fifty years the public 
health has rapidly declined; Insanity has increased 300% ; 
Cancer 305%; Bright 's Disease 525%; Diabetes 1459%. 

THE PHOTOLYTIC DISSOCIATION OF THE 
ELEMENTS. 

Plant Life, the Sunbeam Theory and Chlorophyl belief: 
Authorities declare the wood we use as fuel and grain as 
food are valuable because of the energy they have stored up 
from the sunlight in which they grow ; that the solar beams 
are actually stored up in the substance of a plant. The 
Chlorophyl hypothesis involves the mistake in attributing 
to the thing formed the work of forming things. Chloro- 
phyl is the first product of the assimilating process and not 
the essential agent in the assimilation in plants. Chloro- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 11 

phyl granules are supposed to decompose carbonic acid and 
water under the action of sunlight, with the evolution of 
oxygen and the formation of starch and other compounds. 
This newly formed material reflects the green rays of the 
solar spectrum, the visible effect being the green color of the 
leaf in which it is formed ; the potato coming direct from 
the soil is white, and when exposed to the solar beams grad- 
ually assumes a green color. The change of color cannot be 
attributed to a material increment of any sort. 

How energy is stored in food. Carbon and Hydrogen 
are the combustible elements of organic matter and pre- 
sented to the growing plant as oxygen compounds ; CO- and 
KUO. The CO is imbibed from the atmosphere by the 
leaves of the plant while the TLO. with the earthy matters 
afforded by the soil in solution and taken up by the rootlets. 
is then taken up to the leaves of the plant where it is 
converted with the CO taken from the air into organic 
matter. The solar beams play an important part in the 
transformation. A square inch of a leaf from the common 
lilac contains 120.000 months that absorb CO-\ The con- 
version of inorganic elements to the organic is due to two 
forms of energy, the actinic energy of the chemical power 
of the solar beams and the vital or inherent power of the 



12 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

plant. The solar radiations constitute the power behind the 
throne in transforming lifeless materials of the soil and 
atmosphere into life, thus sustaining organic matter. The 
solar rays split the CO and the EbO into Carbon and Hy- 
drogen which go to form the plant plasma upon which it 
feeds, the oxygen being thrown off in this dissociation of 
the elements, the solar rays breaking up the chemical 
affinity. All plant substance is built up by chemical separa- 
tion and broken down by the energy of chemical union. 
Carbon and hydrogen as heat generators are unrivalled, 
and the adaptability of carbon to vital uses is that it can 
assume any of the physical properties of matter ; solid 
in the form of plant substance ; liquid in the liquid peptones 
and gaseous as carbon dioxide gas. It is eminently comple- 
mentary to the doctrine of the conservation of energy in 
that it shows: (1) How energy is stored in the food sub- 
stance, (2) to what element food owes its energy-dispensing 
attributes, (3) how and where this element is commingled 
with oxygen forming the red blood corpuscle, (4) how these 
sources of power explain nutrition of the nerves and 
muscles, (5) how the carbon and oxygen of the nutrient 
matter stored in the cells are brought into chemical union 
producing the heat that warms the body, also the nervous 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 13 

and muscular powers that animate and propel it, (6) how 
the vito-motive power or muscular energy impinges upon 
the motor mechanism of the vital machine and setting it in 
motion, (7) where and how waste products are produced, 
(8) how the materials are gathered and borne to the emunc- 
tories and thence to the outer world. It shows that foods 
owe their value to the organized carbon they contain and to 
their capability of being reduced to a dialyzable and non- 
coagulable liquid peptone. The vital energies depend upon 
the nutrition or the filling of the cells of the nerves and 
muscles, and assimilation relates to the growth of the body 
and repair of abraded or lacerated tissue. The growth and 
repair from an eight-pound babyhood to a 140-pound man- 
hood comprehend an average assimilation of 6 2/7 pounds 
per annum, or V± ounce per day. The digestive fluid is not 
a ferment but a powerful solvent, as digestion reduces food 
to a diffusible state, without depriving it of its organic 
properties, while fermentation renders it diffusible by re- 
ducing it to the inorganic and useless state. The digestive 
material should be non-coagulable and diffusible or com- 
pletely peptonized, as it then passes Avith ease through the 
intestino-vascular walls to reach the cell cavity. The requi- 
site fineness of food is obtained when it is in condition to be 



14 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

moulded into the matrices of the red blood corpuscle, and in 
its passage through the meshes of the lymph nodes the 
trabeculae break the material passing through them into 
particles of uniform size. The matrices of the red blood 
corpuscle imbibe oxygen in the pulmonary capillaries, and 
the red corpuscle, plus food and oxygen are the materials 
producing all vital energies, either physical, nervous or 
thermal, in consequence of the reunion of the previously 
divorced elements thereof, carbon and oxygen. Blo*od 
Stasis or Congestion is due to the obstructive action of im- 
perfectly elaborated organic matter, not thoroughly pepton- 
ized and which undergoes inspissation or coagulation and 
chokes up the glands and capillaries. All waste matter is 
produced in the cells of the muscles and nerves, excepting 
that discharged by the liver in the shape of bile. The stimu- 
lation attending the use of flesh foods (meats) is due to the 
toxic properties of their enmeshed waste products — that the 
stimulation is the resentment the vital organism displays 
whenever an individual indulges in what may be called 
Necrophagy. Muscles and nerves are not destroyed in the 
development of the vital energies, as the profession sup- 
poses, but exist throughout life unless subjected to 
traumatic or morbific agencies, while only those cells 






MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 15 



subjected to constant wear, as we find in the skin, 
hair and mucous membrane, are replaced by new 
cells. The living- organism is composed entirely of 
organic matter and all the vital energies are de- 
rived from organized material, and there are only two 
inorganic substances needed: FLO, water, as a solvent 
diluent and detergent, and oxygen, as a supporter of com- 
bustion ; oxidizing the carbon compounds. All inorganic 
substances otherwise found, such as the chloride of sodium 
and carbon dioxide gas are purely waste products and must 
be expelled. Animal heat is produced by the oxidation of 
the carbon compounds. Emaciation is due to imperfect 
digestion, obstruction of the circulation or want of enough 
food. Muscular fibrils have not the property of contractil- 
ity, as Anatomists declare, but are acted upon by the Vito 
Motive power. Congestion, the primary lesion of disease, 
has never been properly explained by medical authorities, 
and the doctrines upon which we have been depending for 
guidance are radically wrong, leading us not into health, 
but in the confines of disease and death. Life is a display 
of energy — disease is a loss of energy — while death is 
a negation of all vital energies. The existing theory of 
Metabolism is that ; there is a gradual destruction of our 



16 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

bodies going on during life, as no act can be performed 
except by the wearing away of muscle and other tissues of 
the body, the bony framework not excepted, hence the im- 
pression of people who fear their bodies will be broken down 
faster than it can be rebuilt, in order to evade these imag- 
inary disasters, are careful to consume each day, whether 
at work or not, and whether the appetite is present or not, 
what they consider the proper quantity of so-called tissue 
building foods, such as meat, eggs, cereals and legumes, 
and from which the resulting gain in weight is due to the 
accumulation of imperfectly elaborated material in the 
body. The paradox of the disablement and untimely de- 
struction of the body in consequence of attempts to build 
it up on the lines laid down by the doctrine in question are 
plainly evident. They have never shown the necessity of 
anything gained by the conversion of food into vital tissues, 
and then followed by the decomposition of them — they have 
also failed to show how the nerves carry the nervous influ- 
ence, or how the muscles can propel the vital machine while 
undergoing metamorphosis — as it presupposes the solution 
of continuity. The doctrine of Metabolism is wrong, as 
there is no destruction and reconstruction of tissues — no 
oxidation of tissues, as the working of the vital machine 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 17 

endures from the beginning to the end of life, like the 
steam engine. 

THE RESPIRATORY FOOD THEORY. 

teaches that the "calor animalis" or animal heat is pro- 
duced in consequence of the oxidation of the fats and oils 
of the foods. It is a fact that the fats after being emulsi- 
fied in the small bowel, are taken up by the lacteals and 
borne by the shortest route to the lungs, where they are 
oxidized at the expense of the oxygen needed for other pur- 
poses. In this process there is of course some heat pro- 
duced, but in a locality where it is not especially needed, 
and to be distributed by the blood to the surface and 
extremities would necessarily be a slow process. Fats and 
oils antagonize digestion, as they envelop the food with an 
impenetrable film, so that the digestive fluids cannot get at 
the foods until the oils pass into decay, producing gases. 
Again they interfere with the bile and pancreatic fluid 
neutralizing the acidity of the food, and this function being- 
interfered with, the blood is rendered acid. Again fats 
interfere with the absorption of food by coating the intes- 
tinal walls with a film which is impenetrable, and which 



18 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

must be removed or starvation of tissue results, hence they 
become emulsified by the bile and pancreatic juices. The 
emulsified material is not absorbed with the nutrient mat- 
ter proper, but by the villi of the intestinal tract to the 
Receptaculum Chili, thence to the Subclavian Vein, in 
which they are commingled with impure blood, and then 
divert a percentage of oxygen from the legitimate work of 
vivifying the red blood corpuscle to the illegitimate task of 
oxidizing almost worthless material. Man is the only mem- 
ber of the animal creation with the temerity to habitually 
devour fats — the carnivora only eat it under compulsion, 
while insects and microbes never attempt to consume pure 
fat, hence the permanency of well rendered fats and oils. 
The Eskimo lives in an atmosphere highly charged with 
oxygen, and exists almost wholly upon a whale blubber diet, 
while a great many are afflicted with some loathsome dis- 
ease, due to the ingestion of fats. The reindeer lives in the 
same region and maintains the requisite temperature on 
fatless foods, and without any fat in its tissues. A still 
better evidence of the baselessness of the doctrine is that in 
civilized lands the demand for animal heat has kept pace 
with the increase of the fat eating custom. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 19 

CHAPTER II. 

THE VITOMOTIVE-POWEIfc— ITS NATURE, ORIGIN 
AND MODUS OPERANDI. THE CONSTRUC- 
TION, NUTRITION, ACTION AND RENOVA- 
TION OF THE MUSCLES. 

Life is a display of the Vital Energies. Disease is a 
decline of the Vital Energies. Death is a complete negation 
of all Vital Energies and properties. The passing of the 
human body from the first of these extremes to the other, be 
it slow, rapid or sudden, involves a problem of surpassing 
importance. Nor can such a problem be solved without 
first unraveling the problems that are wrapped up in the 
phenomena of the normal man. In other words, it is a prac- 
tically self-evident proposition that : If we would find out 
how the vital energies and structures are impaired and 
destroyed, as they are in disease, we must first find out how 
the former are obtained and how the latter are preserved, 
as they are in health. It is an equally evident fact that, if 
we would accomplish such a purpose, we must push our 
investigations from the domain of the phenomenal into that 
of the fundamental — from the realm of facts and occur- 
rences, into that of actuating energies and ruling principles. 



20 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

In a word, the solution of the problems of life, normal and 
abnormal, depends upon the discovery of the power or form 
of energy that bears the same relation to vital phenomena 
that gravitation does to physical phenomena, and the same 
that chemical affinity does to chemical phenomena. That is 
to say, if we would solve the riddles of vitomotive phenom- 
ena we must obtain a definite knowledge of the power or 
form of energy on which the activities of life chiefly depend 
and which may therefore be clothed with some such title as 
the vitomotive — force. 

In consequence of this reasoning and of a vast amount 
of painstaking investigation the writer is prepared, as he 
verily believes, to maintain that he knows the power that 
sets the vital machinery in motion, and the rules by which 
this power is governed, these rules constituting what may 
justly be regarded as the laws of life. 

The discovery in question unravels the mysteries of food 
production, nutrition, nerve action and muscular contrac- 
tion, by showing how energy is stored in food; how food 
energy is transformed into muscular power — the vitomotive- 
f orce — the measure of the efficiency of the same ( a dynamic 
equivalent of 40 atmospheres) ; what this mighty power is; 
how it is called into being- ; from what element of the food it 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 21 

is developed and how it sets the vital machinery in motion. 
In short it has been found that the living organism is a 
gas engine, owing its every movement to expanding carbon 
dioxide gas. That form of energy which sends the "horse- 
less carriage" in triumphant elegance along the highways 
of civilization is that which sets all animated nature in 
motion, nature having done in the very beginning what man 
has bnt recently begun to do. 

CARBON DIOXIDE. 

That carbon dioxide is at the bottom of vito-motive phe- 
nomena is a proposition which finds much support to begin 
with in five well-known facts: (1), that carbon is the most 
abundant constituent of water-free foods; (2), that carbon 
dioxide evinces its capability by possessing as its maximum 
efficiency a dynamic equivalent of 40 atmospheres ; ( 3 ) , that 
carbon dioxide is the burden of every outgoing breath and 
of all cutaneous transpiration; (4), that the amount thus 
discharged increases in exact ratio to the increasing activity 
of the individual, the output in cases of extreme exertion 
being ten times greater than it is in those of moderate activ- 
ity; (5), that carbon dioxide is the most important of all 
contributors to plant growth — every such contribution de- 



22 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

pending, as is well known, upon its breaking up of this car- 
bon compound, and this in turn upon the superior potency 
of the solar beams, the more powerful being able to dispos- 
sess and thrust aside the weaker agent, chemical affinity. 
Separation having been effected, the oxygen returns to the 
circumambient atmosphere, while the carbon enters the 
organic compact, as the most important constituent of plant 
plasma, the material from which the plant is to build up its 
every part and evolve its every attribute. In short, plants 
are the laboratories in which nature effects the separation 
of those elements — carbon and oxygen — from whose reunion 
within the cells of the living organism must come all the 
energies, physical, nervous and thermal, of the entire 
domain of animal nature. 

The proposition that the body is actuated by the expans- 
ive power of carbon dioxide would have little, if any, weight 
in the absence of a logical showing that the vital machinery 
is so constructed that it may be set in motion by such an 
agent. Attention is now therefore invited to the various 
processes and principles involved in the construction, 
nutrition, action and renovation of the muscles, confining 
attention to those which are subject to the mandates of the 
will. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 23 




Fig. 1 

Cell Structure. 



CELL STRUCTURE. 



The fascia and the elemental cells. There are in every 
muscle two contrivances on which its performance as a pro- 
pelling device depends — the elemental cell, or smallest com- 
ponent part thereof and the fascia, or so-called "investing 
membrane." The elemental cells correspond to the "dark 
striae" of the muscular fibrils. The fibrilae of the volun- 
tary muscles, when viewed by the aid of the microscope, 
appear like strands of red-colored beads. These bead-like 
subdivisions are separated from one another by what ap- 
pears to be a thin translucent disk, which is called the light 
striation. Each dark striation, or bead-like subdivision, of 
the fibril is a hollow, translucent and highly elastic cell, or 
cavity, whose primary purpose is the storage of energy — 
dispensing material or nutrient matter — that mechanical 



24 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

comminglement of a combustible and a supporter of com- 
bustion, of food and oxygen, which is called arterial blood. 

Because of the transparency of the cell the nutriment 
matter contained therein is visible after the manner of a 
colored fluid in a transparent glass bottle, the aggregate 
effect being the red. appearance of lean meat. The construc- 
tion of the fibril may be fairly represented by a number of 
cylindrical pill boxes placed in a row, end to end, the tops 
and bottoms in contact representing the septa, or partitions 
between the cells, while the inside of each box represents a 
single cell or nutrient cavity. In other words, each dark 
stripe is at once a food depository and an energy-generating 
laboratory. 

Figure 1 illustrates both the form of a cell of the kind 
under consideration and the reticular, or net-like construc- 
tion of the cell-wall, C being the cell and a a the septa, or 
partitions between the cell and those joined thereto, above 
and below, a part of which is shown in the figure. 

It will be seen upon careful consideration of the details 
thereof that this mode of construction will secure both 
economy and speedy action — the instantaneous production 
of a maximum of motion in consequence of the expenditure 
of a minimum of the actuating power, namely, expanding 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 25 

carbon dioxide gas. The polar extremities, or ends, of the 
cells are cemented together, as it were, a great number of 
cells thus united forming a fibril. This structure has been 
regarded as the "ultimate element" of a muscle, but the 
fact is that the cells are the ultimate elements thereof. 

NUTRITION AND ELIMINATION. 

The filling of the above described cells with nutrient 
matter — arterial blood — is the culminating event of that 
much discussed but thus far unexplained process which 
is called nutrition. The way in which nutrition is effected 
is, after all, a very simple matter, as will be seen by re- 
ferring to Fig. 2, which is, upon the whole, a schematic, 
representation of the various structures and processes upon 
which the vital activities chiefly depend. That is to say 
in this illustration the various organs are arranged, not 
as they are in the body, but in such a manner as to enable 
the student to see at a glance the principal details of 
the nutritive mechanism and of the functions that it 
performs — the digestion of the food, the absorption of the 
digested material, the oxygenation of this material, or incor- 
poration therewith of oxygen ; the circulation of the blood, 



26 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



the consummation of the nutritive process, or passage of 
food into the cells, and the elimination of the waste matters 
previously formed in the cells, thus spanning by means of a 




Fibril. 



F ig. 2 



single engraving the many facts and processes that obtain 
between the eating of the food and the discharging of the 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 27 

waste, or ash, that is the vital retort after the food has 
yielded up its fund of energies, muscular and thermal. 

The various structures upon which the performance of 
these all important functions depends are designated by the 
numerals 1, 2, 3. 4, 5, 6. 7, 8, 9. 

The cells of which the fibril is composed and in which 
the nutriment matter is deposited in the consummation of 
the nutritive process are indicated by the Roman numerals, 
I, II, III, IV. 

The functions performed by the former class of struct- 
ures, beginning at the top of the figure and taking them in 
order of their action, are: 1. Ingestion of food. 2. Diges- 
tion of the food. 3. Neutralization of acids and emulsifica- 
tion of fats. 4. Absorption of the chyle. 5. Cardiac propul- 
sion of the blood. 6. Arterialization, or oxygenation, of the 
blood. 7. Arterial transportation of the blood. 8. Nutri- 
tion, or the filling of the cells with food and oxygen. 9. 
Elimination of the waste matters previously formed in the 
cells. 

On the right margin of this figure there is depicted a 
portion of a muscular fibril, consisting of four cells (which 
are indicated by the Roman numerals), and in connection 
therewith ; first, the trunk and terminal fibres of the attend- 



28 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

ing nerve (the channels through which the mandates of the 
will are brought to bear upon nutrient matter stored in the 
cells) ; second, the capillary by which the cells, or nutrient 
cavities, are supplied with nutrient matter ; third, the pass- 
age of the nutrient matter (by osmosis) from the lumen of 
the capillary through the cell-wall and into the cell-cavity, 
which is shown by the ingoing arrow ; fourth, the escape of 
the waste products previously formed in the cell, which is 
indicated by the outgoing arrow. 

CORPUSCLES. 

It is more than probable that the "blood-plates" are the 
matrices of the red corpuscles, imbibing oxygen or oxygen- 
laden hemoglobin, as a sponge does water, and that this 
imbibition takes place in the pulmonary capillaries, the oxy- 
gen finding its way into these vessels while the ingenerated 
carbon dioxide is being discharged into the air cells and 
thence to the outer world — propositions which involve what 
appears to be a logical settlement of the much mooted ques- 
tion as to the "birth-place" of the red corpuscle. 

The corpuscles thus formed and endowed, consisting, as 
they do, of a combustible substance (food) intimately 
associated with a "supporter of combustion" (oxygen), are 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 29 

the materials from which all the vital energies, physical, 
nervous and thermal, are derived. 

The object attained by the formation and oxygenation of 
the red corpuscle is the segregation and intimate com- 
mingling of the requisite amounts of carbon (of the food) 
and oxygen (of the respired air) to form a non-residual 
combustible compound — non-residual in the sense that there 
is just enough carbon and oxygen to form carbon dioxide 
gas — the vitomotive-force — and no more, the affinities of 
these elements being completely satisfied, chemically speak- 
ing; or in other words, the carbon and oxygen exist in the 
fully elaborated nutrient matter (red corpuscles) in the 
proportion of one atom of carbon to two of oxygen — the 
principal product of this combination being the familiar 
CO 2 which finds dynamic expression in the animation and 
propulsion of the vital machine, as explained further on. 

In the consummation of the nutritive function, the oxy- 
gen-laden materials now described (red corpuscles) are 
passed by osmosis (either in their entirety or in the form of 
an intimate blending of their component elements), from 
the capillaries through the cell-walls and into the cell-cavity. 

Lest an important matter should be lost sight of, let it be 
carefully noted in passing : First, that the passage of the 



30 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

food with its quantum of oxygen into the cells is the final 
event of the nutritive process, while the passage of the waste 
matter out of the cells is the initial event of the eliminative 
process; secondly, that the replenishment and the depura- 
tion of the cells and axis-cylinders of the nerves are effected 
in a similar manner. 

It should also be carefully noted in passing : First, that 
underlying nutrition, the most important of all vital pro- 
cesses, is that marvelously energetic physical process on 
which plant growth largely depends — that wondrously 
forceful transference of liquefied material from one cell or 
cavity to another by means of which the crude sap is borne 
upward step by step, or from cell to cell (and in spite of 
gravitation), from the rootlets to the topmost leaf of the 
tallest tree that ever grew, namely, osmosis ; secondly, that 
as the day advances and its labors are prosecuted, the waste 
matters gradually accumulate in the cells (elimination not 
being able to keep pace with waste production), thus dis- 
placing, or the rather, preventing the ingress of the requi- 
site amount of nutriment, the effect upon the sensorium 
being that of either weariness or exhaustion, according to 
the extent of the said involvement; thirdly, that sleep, 
"nature's sweet restorer," now makes good its title by 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 31 

affording the requisite opportunity for the accumulated 
waste matter to be exchanged for fresh supplies of the 
energy-dispensing materials, namely, food and oxygen. 

METABOLISM. 

The ingoing of the food, and the outgoing of the waste 
products are simultaneously performed, and for the obvious 
reason that two things cannot occupy the same space at the 
same moment of time. As the air must escape from the jug 
so that the water may enter it, so must the waste materials 
pass out of the cell so that the nutrient matter can reach its 
destination, the interior of the cells. The waste products 
here referred to are the resultants of the combustion of 
nutrient matter within the. cells — a fact which will be 
explained further on. On being discharged from the cells, 
as above described, the waste products are passed into the 
distal end of the subjacent capillary, and thence by the 
veins to the emunctories, and through these to the outer 
world. Under normal conditions each of the last named 
structures collects and discharges that part of the said waste 
matter for whose elimination it was especially ordained, the 
skin disposing of the perspirable matter, the liver collecting 
and discharging any bile that may be formed in this process 



32 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

(a doubtful matter, however), the lungs the carbon dioxide 
gas, and the bowels the ingenerated portion of the fecal mat- 
ter. It will be remembered that all of these waste products, 
the CO2 not excepted, are the soluble in the aqueous element, 
or water, of the blood. As a matter of fact, water fulfills the 
quadruple purpose of dissolving (by the aid of the digestive 
juices) and conveying the food to its destination in the 
nutritive cells, and of dissolving and transporting the waste 
products of the body to the emunctories, and thence to the 
outer world. 

The cells imbibe nutriment in almost if not exact ratio, 
it may well be supposed, to the activity of the body, the free- 
dom of the blood flow and the completeness of the intra- 
arterial supply of fully elaborated nutriment. In other 
words, the more active the body and the more perfect the 
existing conditions the more abundant is the imbibition of 
the food by the cells of the muscles and nerves. 

The fascia, or "investing membrane," of the muscle is 
constructed on the same principle that obtains in the con- 
struction of the elemental cells. That is to say, it is a net- 
work of very strong and absolutely inelastic filaments, 
which proceeds, as a general rule, from the tendinous 
extremities of a muscle and spreads itself over the entire 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



33 







Fig. 3 



Fig 4 



Fig. 5 



Fi«. 6 



surface of the same, as shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 4 shows the 
mnscle in a state of contraction, its fascia being transversely 
expanded and its length reduced. Fig. 5 discloses the mode 
of the construction of the walls of the cells in which the 
food is stored — that the cell as well as the fascia is a well- 
extended network. A moment's study of these diagrams 
will show that whenever the vitomotive-force is generated 
within the cell it is bound to expand in the transverse direc- 
tion and become shorter, as shown in Fig. 6, and that the 
fascia will in turn be forced by the expansion of the cells to 
do the same, as shown in Fig. 4. 

When the muscle is relaxed, or at rest, both the cells and 
the fascia are so fully extended in the direction of their 



34 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

longer axes that their meshes are well nigh closed; hence, 
their susceptibility to further extension is only sufficient to 
permit of the action of the opposing muscle. It is an easy 
matter to see that whenever the network represented by 
Fig. 3 is expanded from within it will assume the shape of 
that represented by Fig. 4, involving a transverse expansion 
and a longitudinal shortening. It is an obvious fact, there- 
fore, that the muscle is free to expand in the transverse 
direction only, and that the objects attained by this method 
of construction are : First, the quickest possible response to 
the mandates of the will ; secondly, the greatest possible 
effect (movement) from the least possible expenditure of 
the vito-motive-force, as already stated. 

MUSCULAR CONTRACTION. 

The fascia and the nutrient cells have thus far been con- 
sidered separate and apart from each other. Let us now 
proceed to study them as co-workers in the transformation 
of food-energy into muscular power. The human body is 
an automaton of the highest order and hitherto of the most 
enigmatical character. It takes in crude materials in the 
shape of food and oxygen, and by a hitherto mysterious 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



35 



alchemy, or vito-chemism, extracts from them a triad of 
energies, the heat that warms, the energy that controls and 
the power that propels the living automaton. 

-7T 




Fig. 7 Fig-. 8 Fig. 9 

The mechanism through which these wonderful results 
are produced is, after all, cpiite simple, as will be seen by 
reference to Figs. 7. 8 and 9. Fig. 7 represents a muscle 
with its longitudinally extended network, or fascia, while 
Figs. 8 and 9 are intended to illustrate muscular contrac- 
tion. Let us suppose that the lines a and b, Fig. 8, repre- 
sent opposing sides of the fascia of a muscle and that the 
junction of these lines, above and below, represent its tendi- 
nous extremities. In order to make the mechanics of cell- 
action all the more easy of comprehension, let us simplify 



36 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

matters by supposing that all the cells of any given muscle 
have been blended into one, and that this huge cell is repre- 
sented by the circle C, of the figure just referred to. It will 
now be perceived that if this cell be forcibly expanded its 
diameter will be increased and that it will impinge upon the 
lines a and b, forcing them apart in the center and produc- 
ing that approximation of the extremities of the figure 
which is shown in figure 9. It is needless to point out that 
the discrepancy between the continuous and the broken lines 
is intended to indicate the enlargement of the cell and the 
shortening of the fascia. The attentive reader will readily 
perceive that whenever the vitomotive-force, or carbon diox- 
ide gas, is developed within the cells, the expansion of this 
gas will cause the cells to expand; that these will in turn 
cause the fascia to expand and that this structure will yield, 
as all other movable and moving objects do, in the direction 
of least resistance, which is transverse to its longer axis, as 
will be seen by reference to the fact already stated, namely, 
that it (the fascia) consists of a longitudinally extended 
network of absolutely inelastic fibres. For it is an obvious 
fact that such a structure cannot be further extended, or 
made longer, but is perfectly open to transverse expansion, 
which will of necessity make it shorter. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 37 

THE UNITY OR ORIGIN OF THE ANIMAL HEAT 
AND THE VITO-MOTIVE-FORCE. 

It is not at all unreasonable to suppose : First, that the 
nutrient matter stored in the cells is so unstable and so com- 
pletely under instinctive control that a slow combustion — 
just sufficient to keep up the ordinary body temperature — 
may constantly be maintained; second, that the carbon 
dioxide produced under such circumstances will be taken 
up by the aqueous element (water) of the blood as fast as it 
is formed, and that the muscle will therefore remain the 
meanwhile at rest ; third, that in order to arouse and utilize 
the propulsive capabilities of the nutrient matter that is 
smouldering, as it were, in the cells it will be necessary to 
greatly and suddenly increase the oxidizing process, in 
which event the evolution of the gas in question will be 
rapid enough to enable it to exert its expansive power upon 
the muscular structures before it has had time to escape 
from the cells into the water of the blood ; fourth, that this 
is accomplished by means of a nervous impulse, originated 
by act of the will or of the vital instincts, as the case may 
be, and conveyed to the nerve fibres. In short, the com- 
bustion that is constantly going on in the cells, giving rise 



38 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

to animal heat, is stirred into explosive violence by a 
volitional nervous impulse, the result being the production 
of carbon dioxide in sufficient volume and with sufficient 
suddenness to enable it to set the vital machinery in motion 
before it has had time to escape from the cells. 

It will be well for the reader to here pause and not only 
recall, but fix upon the memory the important and well 
known fact that oxygen cannot unite with organic matter in 
the absence of a tertium quid, or third agent, of some sort, 
and that the nervous influence, a prominent member of 
this, 2lass of agencies, has charge of those combinations of 
food and oxygen on which the development of the vital 
energies depends. 

The facts which are involved in the transformation of 
the potential energy of food into the kinetic form, as we 
find it in the vitomotive-force, cannot be too deeply im- 
pressed upon the mind; hence, it will be well to repeat: 
1. That the nutrient matter stored in the cells in the con- 
summation of the nutritive process, consisting as it does of 
a most intimate comminglement of food and oxygen — of a 
combustible with a supporter of combustion — is in a state 
of extremely unstable equilibrium, and is, therefore, noth- 
ing more nor less than a delicately balanced explosive of 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 39 

high potential: 2. That the carbon and oxygen thus inti- 
mately associated is brought into chemical combination by 
act of the will expressed by means of the nerves and nerv- 
ous influence. 3. That, whenever the will so orders an 
explosion must occur in every cell which is included in or 
reached by the volitional edits. 4. That the carbon dioxide 
thus generated within the cells forces them to expand and 
in a direction Avhich is transverse to the longer axis of the 
fibril, this being the line of least resistance, as above ex- 
plained. 5. That the expanding cells impinge upon the 
inner surface of the fascia causing it to yield in like man- 
ner and for the same reason, thus producing that transverse 
expansion and longitudinal shortening of a muscle upon 
which the physical activities of the body mainly and evi- 
dently depend, as above stated. In short, the will acts, the 
nutrient matter explodes, the cells expand, the fascia yields, 
the muscle contracts, and the vital machinery is set in 
motion ; not, however, in consequence of ' ' metabolism ' ' of 
the " white blood corpuscle, ' ' but of the red ; not by reason 
of the "metamorphosis" of the tissues of the body, but of 
food ; not by the energy of ' ' resurrected sunbeams ' ' nor of 
any other immaterial agency, but of expanding carbon diox- 
ide gas ; not in consequence of the presence of nitrogen in 



40 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

the food nor of any other incombustible element, but of 
carbon, and this not from the inorganic world, but the 
organic; not by a product of any laboratory of human 
origin, but of the plant world — that immeasurably greater 
concern which was instituted by the All-Wise-Being and 
for the express purpose of effecting the separation of those 
elements — carbon and oxygen — from whose reunion within 
the nutritive cells of the living organism must come all the 
energies, physical, mental, nervous and thermal of the 
entire domain of animated nature. 

THE MUSCULO-MECHANICAL AND THE TOXICO- 
VIVIFICAL PARADOXES. 

The theories now presented in explanation of the phe- 
nomenon of muscular contraction will surely cause the man 
of science, not only to recall the fact of the wondrous preva- 
lence of the element upon which this great fact of life 
mainly depends, namely, carbon, but to engage in the de- 
lightful as well as instructive diversion of tracing out the 
splendid circle that it describes in the course of its ministra- 
tions on behalf of the vegetable and animal kingdoms; 
First, in its departure from the precincts of vitality, by way 
of the respiratory system, and in the shape of carbon diox- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 41 

ide gas ; then in its wanderings through the circumambient 
atmosphere in combination with oxygen and under its 
connubial appellation CO; then in its divorcement from 
its companion (oxygen) and entrance into the organic com- 
pact as the principal element, or energy-dispensing, constitu- 
ent of food ; then in its migration from the intestinal tract 
into the circulating system, as the prime essential of nutri- 
ent matter ; then in its wanderings through the devious 
labyrinths of the animal organism as the chief constituent 
of the red corpuscle, and hence, as the traveling companion 
and prospective bride of oxygen ; then in its passage in 
company with its attendant (oxygen) from the circulating 
system into the nutrient cells of the muscular, nervous and 
cerebral systems ; then in its intra-cellular remarriage with 
oxygen under the ministrations of the duly empowered 
officials, the will and the A T ital instincts (the nerves being 
the bearers of the volitional and instinctive decrees) ; then 
in the bestowal of its priceless benefactions — that fervency 
which sets the body aglow with animal heat ; that subtle 
influence which not only conveys the mandates of the will 
and of the vital instincts to the deepest recesses and remot- 
est ramifications of the vital organism, but underlies the 
wonders of the sensorium as well. In short, the scientific 



42 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

mind will readily perceive that organized carbon is the 
source, not only of the relatively inferior calor animalis, or 
animal heat, but of the higher potentialities of life — that 
subtle agency which puts the ego into vito-electric communi- 
cation with every province of its vast domain ; that match- 
less radiance which goes to make up the intellectual splen- 
dors of the world, and, last, but not least, that marvelous 
physical agency which sets all animated nature in motion, 
baffling identification in the peculiarities of its modus oper- 
andi — a performance which comprehends two of the most 
remarkable paradoxes to be found, namely, the toxico-vivi- 
fical paradox of producing life by means of a deadly gas, 
and the musculo-mechanical paradox of producing contrac- 
tion by means of expansion, the contraction of the muscles 
in consequence of the forcible expansion of their component 
cells. 

The validity and practical value of the discovery set 
forth, that the vito-motive force is both the actuating agent 
and the ruling principle of the vital domain, can be seen 
by following the example set by the physical scientists — 
a procedure which is more reliable, even, than that of 
experimentation. 

In speaking of the fundamentals of physical science, 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 43 

Prof. Huxley declared (page 66, Smithsonian Report, 
1887) that— 

"All physical science starts from certain postulates. 
One of them is the objective existence of a material world. 
It is assumed that the phenomena which are comprehended 
under this name have a "substratum" of extended, impen- 
etrable, mobile substance, which exhibits the quality known 
as inertia, and is termed matter. Another postulate is the 
universality of the law of causation; that nothing happens 
without a cause (that is, a necessary precedent condition), 
and that the state of the physical universe, at any given 
moment, is the consequence of its state at any preceding 
moment. Another is that any of the rules or so-called 
"laws of nature," by which the relation of phenomena is 
truly defined, is true for all time. The validity of these 
postulates is a problem of metaphysics ; they are neither 
self-evident nor are they, strictly speaking, demonstrable. 
The justification of their employment, as axioms of physical 
philosophy, lies in the circumstance that expectations logi- 
cally based upon them are verified, or, at any rate, not 
contradicted, whenever they can be tested by experience." 

Precisely the same is true of the postulates advanced 
in the preceding chapter. While it is impossible for anyone 



44 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

to view with the physical organ of vision the vito-motive 
force and its correlated energies at work, any man of aver- 
age imaginative capacity can witness the operation of these 
agencies by bringing the metaphysical organ of vision — 
the eye of the mind — into action. By this means he can 
see the solar beam splitting the carbon dioxide of plant 
growth, leaving the carbon in possession of the plant and 
sending the oxygen back into the atmosphere to await the 
opportunity to reclaim its divorced companion ; he can 
see the carbon (of the food) brought into intimate asso- 
ciation with its former companion- (oxygen) in the event 
of the completion — oxygenation — of the matrices of the 
red blood corpuscles ; he can see these newly developed 
corpuscular magazines of energy in their journey ings from 
the pulmonary capillaries through the arterial system to 
the terminal capillaries thereof and from these to the in- 
terior of the nutritive cells; he can see the tiny nervo- 
electric spark solemnize the nuptials of the carbon and 
oxygen by "touching off" this magazine of nutritive 
explosives, and hear, if he will, the gladsome rejoicings 
of the occasion in the shape of the "tone" (detonations) 
referred to but not explained in Prof. Marey's "Animal 
Mechanism " ; he can see the energies thus produced — ani- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 45 

mal heat and the vito-motive force — warming and actuat- 
ing the vital organism ; he can see the agent that gave 
rise to these actions, the supposedly unimportant, yet all- 
imortant CO, wending its way from the scene of its para- 
doxical exploits to the outer world and thence by way of 
the atmosphere to the court in which divorcement is to 
be reenacted — the plant world — all this is seen, and just 
as plainly as if it had been viewed by the anatomical organ 
of vision. In short, the time has come when the eye that 
witnesses the operations of gravity and chemical affinity 
may hold the vastly more important operations of the vito- 
motive force and its co-workers, the calor animalis and the 
nervous influence. 

It will also be seen that this newly conceived vital phil- 
osophy commends itself not only by being perfectly har- 
monious within itself and with the exact sciences, but by 
possessing the further attribute of being complementary 
to that matchless conception of energy, bridging the ob- 
viously existent hiatus between the known and the un- 
known in its relation to vital phenomena, by disclosing 
the ruling principle of the vital domain — the vito-motive 
f orce — showing how and from what this agent is derived, 
how it impinges upon the motor mechanism of the body 



46 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

and suggesting the rules by which it is governed. In 
short, the knowledge now set forth in this connection 
together with certain generally accepted truths may be 
codified, forming what may justly be regarded as the laws 
of life. This may be roughly done as follows: 

THE LAWS OF LIFE. 

1. All life begins with a cell or ovum, which is a 
product of antecedent life. 

2. Every living organism, vegetable and animal, is in 
its essence an aggregation of cells, each cell being attached 
to other cells of the same class. 

3. Every living organism, vegetable and animal, is the 
offspring of two parent organisms, male and female. 

4. Every living organism, vegetable and animal, is 
composed of organized materials. 

5. Every living thing, vegetable and animal, depends 
for its growth and development upon organized material — 
namely, food. 

6. Plants aided by solar chemism prepare their own 
food, by converting the inorganic materials obtained from 
the earth and atmosphere into organic matter, plant 
plasma. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 47 

7. The growth of plants depends in part upon an 
adequate quantity of water, which supplies the requisite 
hydrogen, dissolves the earthy matters, and conveys the 
dissolved materials to the organizing laboratories — the 
leaves. 

8. The food of animals consists of such organized 
materials as they are able to digest and appropriate in 
the growth and repair of their bodies, and in the develop- 
ment of their energies. 

9. The prime essential of the food of animals is that 
element from which the vital energies, physical, nervous 
and thermal, are developed — namely, carbon. 

10. Animals require in addition to food two inorganic 
substances — namely, water and oxygen — the former to 
serve as a solvent, diluent and detergent, and the latter 
as an oxidizer, combining with the carbon of the food in 
the development of the vito-motive force, nervous energy 
and animal heat. 

11. Plant respiration takes place in the leaves thereof 
and consists in the absorption of carbon dioxide, the dis- 
sociation of its elements, the appropriation of the carbon, 
and the elimination of the oxygen. 



48 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

12. Animal respiration takes place in the pulmonary 
organs and consists in the exchange of carbon dioxide for 
oxygen. 

13. Assimilation consists in the transformation of pep- 
tonized materials into animal tissues and is confined to 
the growth of the body and the repair of its damaged 
tissues. 

14. Nutrition consists in the refilling of the cells of 
which the muscular and nervous systems are composed 
with nutrient matter. 

15. The proper performance of the vital machinery 
depends upon the complete and timely elimination of all 
useless materials, from those produced in the cells in the 
development of the vital energies, to such substances as 
may find their way into the circulation in advance of their 
complete digestion. 

16. The residual matters are discharged through the 
lungs, the skin, bowels and kidneys, while all food sub- 
stances that find their way into the blood vessels in advance 
of complete peptonization are, as a rule, transformed into 
less harmful substances and then discharged by the liver 
— the albumin and cellulose into fibrin, the starch into 
glucose, and these in turn into bile, which is then passed 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 49 

into the duodenum and utilized in common with the pan- 
creatic secretion in the neutralization of the acids of the 
food. 

17. The eliminating organs perform vicarious service, 
when necessary, one organ discharging material that 
another organ is not able to dispose of. 

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 

The theory now advanced in explanation of vito-motive 
phenomena involves many important facts, principles and 
implications, among which are the following: 

1. It is in harmony with the fact that scientific dis- 
covery tends to simplify matters by disclosing a single 
form of energy, or at most a few of such, as the basis of 
a wide range of complex and seemingly diverse phenomena 
— that discovery involves the simplification as well as the 
explanation of the facts of experience and observation. 

2. It has disclosed an important distinction which had 
escaped us — namely, that the digestive fluid is not a fer- 
ment, but a powerful solvent — that digestion reduces food 
to the diffusible state without depriving it of its organic 
properties, while fermentation renders it diffusible by 
reducing it to its elements. 



50 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

3. It shows that digestion must be carried to such a 
state of perfection that the food shall be both perfectly 
diffusible and non-coagulable ; that is, reduced to a peptone. 

4. It shows that all the vital energies are derived from 
that intimate admixture of food and oxygen — of a com- 
bustible with a supporter of combustion — which is termed 
the red blood corpuscle. 

5. It settles the much mooted questions regarding the 
"birth place" and "death place" of the hemocytes, or red 
corpuscles — showing that they are born, or completed, in 
the pulmonary capillaries, and that they are destroyed in 
the cells of the muscular and nervous systems, giving rise 
to animal heat, nervous energy and muscular power. 

6. It shows that the object attained by the formation 
and oxygenation of the red corpuscle is the segregation 
and intimate commingling of the requisite amounts of 
carbon and oxygen to form a non-resident combustible com- 
pound — non-residual in the sense that there is just enough 
carbon and oxygen in each corpuscle to form carbon dioxid 
gas, or animal heat, or nervous energy, as the case may be, 
the affinities of both constituents — carbon and oxygen — 
being exactly satisfied, chemically speaking. In other 
words, the carbon and oxygen exist in the fully elaborated 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 51 

nutrient matter in the proportion of one atom of carbon 
to two of oxygen, their chemical union finding symbolic 
illustration in the familiar CO, and dynamic expression 
in the animation and propulsion of the living machine. 

7. It implies that the waste matters discharged by 
the body are divisible into two classes, legitimate and illegi- 
timate : ( 1 ) The products of intra-cellular combustion — 
the ash that remains in the cell after the food has been con- 
sumed, the outlets being the skin, kidneys and lungs; (2) 
such materials as happen to find their way into the blood 
in advance of being completely digested, the albuminoids 
being transformed into fibrin and the amyloids into glucose 
and the two into bile. 

8. It has disclosed the fact that the muscular fibers 
are not "endowed with the property of contractility," as 
we have heretofore supposed, but act as they are acted 
upon by the vito-motive force. 

9. It indicates that in the production of vito-motive 
phenomena nervous energy is second in point of impor- 
tance, because it bears the same relation to the vito-motive 
force that the tiny electric spark does to the mighty power 
that is developed by the explosion of the powder charge, 
and that it is proper, therefore, to regard the vito-motive 



52 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

force as the counterpart of gravitation and chemical 
affinity, and, hence, as the law-giving agency. 

10. It shows that the superiority of the "nitrogenous 
foods" is referable not to their nitrogen element, of which 
there is only 16 per cent, but to their carbon constituent, 
of which there is 54 per cent — facts which imply that nitro- 
gen simply serves, in common with the other incombustible 
elements, to impart stability to the food. 

11. In fine, it will be seen upon due investigation that 
the doctrine of the vito-motive force involves the key to 
the early decline and untimely destruction of the human 
body, and that the time is not far distant when the motto, 
"Lux Mentis Scientia," will be as applicable to the medi- 
cal sciences as it is to any member of the family of 
sciences. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 53 

CHAPTER III. 

THE COMPONENT PARTS OF THE BLOOD. 

The Liver, Spleen and Thyroid Gland were devised for 
the purpose of gathering up and preparing for elimina- 
tion sueh elements of food as may find their way into 
the circulation in advance of complete digestion or lique- 
faction essential to assimilation and nutrition. The Lym- 
phatics originate in the interstitial spaces, and they imbibe 
the escaped material from the cells and return it to the 
center of the circulating system, and in passing through 
the trabeculae of the lymph nodes, the albuminous part 
is broken into particles called lymph corpuscles. The 
Spleen, Liver and Thyroid Gland change non-usable ma- 
terial; partially elaborated gelatin, fibrin, gluten, amylum, 
albumin and cellulose. The capillaries of the Spleen, after 
penetrating the pulp end abruptly and do not anastomose, 
so the Splenic artery empties into the pulp of the Spleen. 
The radicles of the Splenic veins begin the same way in 
the pulp and stand ready to receive escaping matter. In 
this pulp reticulum of delicate fibres and cells, we find 
in the meshes red corpuscles, leucocytes in greater number 
than normally in the blood and free amoeboid cells, larger 



54 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

than the leucocytes, and called Splenic cells. The usable 
materials in the Spleen are converted into peptone or its 
equivalent, while the indigestible or useless lignin, cellulose 
and coarse fibrous tissue into fibrinogen. This also imparts 
to the blood its consistency or viscosity, the property that 
enables it to hold the red blood corpuscles in suspension, 
and favors the passage of nutrient matter into the cells 
by establishing resistance sufficient in the capillaries to 
impart emphasis to the osmotic action. Normal viscosity 
of the blood is given as 4.7 to 5.5 while it should be about 
3.5, and when 5 is reached it should be considered abnormal. 
Fibrinogen subserves when needed, protection to abraded 
surfaces, and seals ruptured blood vessels by its coagula- 
bility. The Spleen serves to mitigate the shock produced 
by a rush of blood from the periphery to the center of 
the system, as it is elastic enough to expand three times 
its normal size, thus acting as a safety valve in case of 
shock. 

The Spleen also converts imperfectly elaborated albumi- 
noids. The Liver reduces undigested starch to glycogen 
and converts figrinogen and glycogen into bile — the bile 
is emptied into the duodenum where it combines with the 
alkaline pancreatic juice and neutralizes the acids of the 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 55 

food, and emulsifies the oleaginous material, such as fats 
and oils. The Thyroid Gland secretions pave the way for 
the elimination of non-usable colloid, mucoid, gelatinous 
or muciparious materials, which substances if not properly 
eliminated, produce Exophthalmic Goitre, Myxoedema and 
Colloid disease, producing high blood pressure, deficient 
nutrition, mental aberration, etc. Increased viscosity of 
the blood is due to the inability of the Spleen to reduce 
the albuminoids into fibrinogen, or of the inability of the 
Liver to convert fibrinogen into bile, or to the inability of 
both organs to discharge their duty. Glycosuria is due to 
the inability of the Liver to convert glycogen into bile, as 
the material submitted to the organ may be too great to re- 
duce. Albuminuria is referable to a superabundant pro- 
duction of serum albumin and the inability of the Spleen 
to convert it into fibrinogen. 

THE CELL THEORY. 

The Cell Theory involves a major and a minor premise. 
The major involves that all life begins with a cell, both ani- 
mal and vegetable, and that everything is an aggregation of 
cells. The minor, that the leucocyte or white corpuscle is 
the primordial animal cell. Metchnikoff amends: first, it 



56 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

reproduces wornout tissues ; second, it is a phagocyte ; third, 
it devours and destroys germs. At a certain period of 
its history the leucocyte sends forth and withdraws its 
tentacles "pseudopodia" and with the effect of locomotion, 
it simulates a living organism and the beginning of life; 
in fact the physical basis of life. A dispute in the pro- 
fession differentiating leucocytes and pus corpuscles re- 
sulted in Yirchow 's Criterion ; you must have a knowledge 
of its source ; if from the blood, it is a leucocyte, if from 
an abscess, it is a pus corpuscle. All biologic and physi- 
ologic — dietetic and pathologic teachings show that the 
white corpuscle is a living cell, and by this assumption 
defeating the devotees of the healing art and carrying pain 
and wreckage to thousands, and is responsible for the large 
mortuary statistics of the period during which it has been 
regnant. The white corpuscle and other diversely shaped 
albuminoid materials, variously termed leucocytes, embry- 
onal cells — white cells, giant cells, nucleated and non- 
nucleated cells, also multi-nucleated and pus corpuscles, and 
called so many distinct entities, are the same disturbing 
elements par excellence of the vital economy. The white 
blood corpuscle is a Mortuous Corpusculum, or dead cor- 
puscle, and a foreign body of dangerous import, and its 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 57 

movement is without progress. The cell theory has 
blocked the wheels of the medical progression for years. 
The leucocyte paves the way for disease in general; (1) 
In Good Health, we have one white to one thousand red 
corpuscles; (2) In 111 Health, the number of the white is 
unusually large at the start ; ( 3 ) the number increases 
with the gravity of the morbid process; (4) in the severest 
cases the white corpuscles predominate and the percentage 
is reversed; (5) the patient is always less likely to recover 
with an increasing number of the white blood corpuscles. 

SOURCE OF INFECTION. 

The Leucocyte is of the same material as the composition 
of cells found in various morbid growths, and which have 
simply been expelled from the circulation, being consid- 
ered intruders. Here they assemble in some defenseless 
region and blend into larger cells, finally forming Tumors, 
etc. The disease germ is the tertium quid or third agent 
upon which the unstable forms of organic matter depends 
— and as the leucocytes constitute the pabulum, or soil 
upon which propagation of disease germs depend, and what 
seems to be the phagocytic operation of the destroyer (leu- 
cocyte), is the thing destroyed. The motility of the white 



58 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

corpuscle is due to chemical dissolution — the combined 
effects of chemotaxis, disintegration and gaseous expansion. 
Nature has allowed the deceptive feat of causing a particle 
of decaying organic matter to simulate the phenomena of 
life with marvelous accuracy. The White Corpuscles are 
composed of albumin ; are of a viscid nature ; are coagulable 
and practically non-existent in health and numerous in 
disease ; are undoubtedly particles of partially digested 
material, and should be regarded as foreign bodies. It is 
due to their viscidity, that causes bacteria to adhere to 
them, and it is the function of germs to destroy the leu- 
cocyte, it being useless organic matter, and the incidental 
effects are the disease the infection represents, the break- 
ing up and discharge of the offending material, or death 
— the patient having become exhausted before the elimi- 
nating process could be completed. Misinterpreted facts: 
the leucocytes become less active in lowered temperature, 
which checks the decomposition, and more active in a high 
temperature with an increase in the disintegrating process, 
and the fact that biologists declare it is killed by iodine, 
arsenic and other poisons, is due to the preservative action 
of these drugs. 

There is a wide difference in the changes in a real 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



animal cell and Leucocytes. The increase in real animal 
cells, as in the Ovum, is ad infinitum, in exact geometrical 
ratio — a thing never observed in Amoeba, or the white 
blood corpuscle. History of the white cell: It starts out 
as a spheroidal non-nuclear and non-motile albuminoid 
mass, later into mono-nuclear of uncertain configuration, 
next into a moving body — later it may fall to pieces and 
disappear. 



60 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

CHAPTER IV. 
PATHOGEN. 

All diseases save those which are caused by traumatism 
or by poisons introduced from external sources, owe their 
incipiency and most of their subsequent history to a Single 
Cause. Reference is made to a certain substance which 
is so extremely deceptive that it is generally regarded as 
an essential element of the blood, when it is, in reality, 
so extremely antagonistic to vital interests that it is en- 
titled, not only to the first place in the category of disease- 
producing agencies, but to the further distinction of having 
a name of its own. For this reason it has been named 
PATHOGEN — a term constructed from the Greek roots, 
path, which means, to Suffer, and gen, which means, to 
generate or produce. 

To advance such a radical theory as this without being 
able to demonstrate on both logical and experimental lines ' 
that it is essentially if not absolutely correct, would be folly 
of the rankest and most reprehensible order. 

Attention will now, therefore be called to the logical 
aspects of the proposition — to what is believed to be a 
perfectly trustworthy explanation of the nature, origin 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 61 

and modus operandi of the matchless disturber of the 
systemic equilibrium above referred to, and with the hope 
that the reader will not lose sight of the fact that simplicity 
is the recognized touchstone of modern science. 

Pathogen is both well known and wholly unknown to 
the scientific world — well known as an incumbent of the 
vital stream, but unknown as the PRINCIPAL CAUSE 
of disease ; it is known to science as serum albumen, and 
to the discoverer as PARTIALLY elaborated organic mat- 
ter — as a derivative of those elements of the ingesta which 
proved to be refractory to the digestive capacity of its 
host, cellulose and amylum affording the leading examples. 

Pathogen interferes with vital operations : ( 1 ) by ren- 
dering the blood so thick and viscid that it cannot be 
properly distributed; (2) by clogging the glands and 
capillaries, producing congestion and most if not all the 
injuries that such a fact naturally implies, the foremost 
being imperfect digestion, impaired nutrition and incom- 
plete elimination; (3) by furnishing a "suitable soil" for 
the propagation of infective organisms; (4) by generating 
through the action of these organisms the greater part of 
the toxins, or putrefactive alkaloids, that we find in the 
progress of disease; (5) by producing irritation and that 



62 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

form of vital resistance which is called inflammation, and, 
per consequence, that abnegation of vital properties which 
is variously termed necrosis, tissue starvation and gan- 
grenous degeneration ; ( 6 ) by escaping into the interstitial 
spaces and assuming the form and virulence of "tubercles" 
and "cancer bodies." This substance is exceedingly hard 
to get rid of because it is practically insoluble in the 
aqueous element of the blood, or in water of any quality 
or temperature, a fact which accounts for the persistency 
of chronic diseases. 

Pathogen finds its way into the circulation so gradually 
and stealthily that the vital current is seriously contami- 
nated with it before its presence therein is suspected; it is 
to begin with a glairy, partially diffusible and somewhat 
viscid substance, and as time advances becomes more and 
more viscid until it finds its way through the capillaries 
with more or less difficulty, if at all; at a somewhat later 
period it becomes so thick and sticky that it can but be- 
smear or completely occlude the capillaries and glandular 
structures. It begins its death-dealing work, as a rule, after 
the vessels have been reduced in calibre in consequence of 
exposure to dampness or chilling draughts, the series of 
effects of primary and most frequent occurrence being the 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 63 

congestion, irritation, febrile action and transudation that 
we see in the accession, progression, and termination of 
coryza, or a "cold" in the head — all this occurring some- 
times in the absence of the aforesaid exposures, and for the 
reason that the material in question becomes so highly 
concentrated that it can no longer find its way through the 
perfectly patulous capillaries and must therefore become 
impacted therein. 

Pathogen, in a changed or partially decomposed state is 
the material that is transuded from the mucous surfaces — 
pushed out of the circulating system, as it were — in the 
progress of such diseases as coryza, catarrh and phthisis 
pulmonalis. In the course of its sojourn within the body, 
pathogen assumes many forms or degrees of consistency, 
from that of something which is thinner than the thinnest 
specimen of catarrhal matter on up to the various sphe- 
roidal solidifications which are so eminently destructive to 
life, namely, HYALINE BODIES, TUBERCLES, GIANT 
CELLS, EPITHELIAL CELLS, EMBRYONAL CELLS 
AND CANCER CELLS, the thinner material giving rise 
to the more concentrated by undergoing either dehydration 
or infective coagulation. 

Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4 are intended to show how pathogen 



64 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 




effects a capillary plexus, as it does in the progress of vari- 
ous diseases from coryza to phthisis pulmonalis. Fig. 1 
represents a capillary plexus which is perfectly patulous, 
the openness of the vessels being shown by the arrows pass- 
ing from the arteriole clear through to the venule. Fig. 2 
shows incipient congestion, the granular areas indicating 
the lodgment of pathogen in the capillaries. Fig. 3 illus- 
trates the more advanced stage of the morbid process, the 
vessels being dilated in consequence of the incarceration 
of a portion of blood between the obstruction in front and 
the blood pressure and arterial valves in the rear— a diffi- 
culty which increases with every stroke of the pulsating 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 65 



organ until the imprisoned fluid is forced out of the vessels 
and into the interstitial spaces, as shown by the arrows in 
Fig. 4. 

DIABETES MELLITUS. 

Diabetes Mellihis has always been regarded as a disease 
of the kidneys, and yet the writer has demonstrated beyond 
the possibility of a reasonable doubt, that diabetes begins 
and ends with CHRONIC GASTRITIS and that the kid- 
neys become victims of the bad work done in the gastric 
laboratory — facts which have escaped detection in conse- 
quence of two eminently delusive circumstances; first that 
diabetics in general have a ' ' good appetite ; ' ' second : that 
they experience little or no trouble in the gastric cavity — 
facts which find explanation in the logical hypothesis that 
the patient's digestion though decidedly below par, is suf- 
ficiently energetic to prevent fermentation. The want of 
evidence of trouble in the stomach has led to the supposi- 
tion that the digestion is good, when in reality it is very 
bad. That is to say, the stomach of the diabetic is so seri- 
ously inflamed and otherwise disordered that it can do but 
little more than PARTIALLY digest such compactly 



66 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

organized alimentary principles as albumen, cellulose and 
starch granules. 

All partially digested food, being worse than useless, 
must be gotten rid of in some way or other. With this end 
in view the carbon of the imperfectly elaborated material is 
hydrated — converted into that eminently soluble carbo- 
hydrate, called glucose — so that it may be readily taken up 
by the blood and conveyed to the outer world, the urinary 
apparatus being the most available outlet. A large per- 
centage of the food is thus wasted, the patient GRADU- 
ALLY STARVING in spite of the ingestion of plenteous 
supplies of food, while his kidneys are being wrecked by the 
vicarious work of discharging the gradually decaying glu- 
cose. By reason of this decay the urine is excessively acid 
in its reaction. For the same reason the blood is occasion- 
ally found to be acid when it should be alkaline. Some 
diabetics become so profoundly laden with decaying saccha- 
rine matter that a distinctly sour smell is emitted from all 
parts of the body. 

BRIGHT 'S DISEASE. 

Albuminuria Chronius or Bright'' s Disease, has proved 
to be even more problematic and intractable than diabetes, 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 67 

the principal reasons for the failure to cure it being the 
very plausible but erroneous suppositions, first that the 
digestion is good, and, second, that an essential element of 
the blood is escaping in consequence of the injuries inflicted 
upon the kidneys by the morbid process, the erroneous 
theory meaning ineffectual treatment. 

In this disease the various structures, retinal, renal, 
vesical and lymphatic are disabled on account of the bad 
work done in the stomach, the resulting pathogen having 
blocked the capillaries thereof, as explained in Figs. 1, 2, 3 
and -i. Nearly every fact that goes to make up the symp- 
tomatology of nephritis is attributable to the accumulation 
and obstructive action of imperfectly elaborated albumen 
and cellulose, the material above designated as pathogen. 
In the beginning but little trouble is experienced, but in 
the progress of time this vile intruder upon the sanctity of 
the vital organism becomes so highly inspissated that it is 
bound to clog and finally wreck the renal glands and ves- 
sels, facts the occurrence of which is evinced by the appear- 
ance of sedimentary materials and tube-casts in the urine, 
the earthy matter denoting retention and inter-systemic 
decomposition of the renal excretion, while the casts point 
to the starvation and consequent exfoliation of the lining 



68 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

membranes of the uriniferous tubules. With the view of 
obviating the multifarious disasters that the "foreign 
body" in question is capable of producing, the kidneys are 
called upon, as it were, to cast it out, in which event it 
appears in the urine in the shape of catarrhal matter, or of 
serum albumen, or of pus corpuscles. In the early history 
of the disease the decline of the vital forces is so gradual 
that it is scarcely noticeable, while the losses sustained by 
the nutritive system finds APPARENT, not real, com- 
pensation in the accumulation of pathogen and ordinary 
waste matter, this fact having the doubly deceptive effect 
of a maintenance of the body weight, and a species of stim- 
ulation (due to the toxicity of the waste products) which is 
so similar to the normal sense of wellbeing that the indi- 
vidual is led to suppose that the existing conditions are 
good, when the fact is they are very bad; for this is thje 
class from which apoplexy, paralysis and "heart failure" 
get their recruits. Today the individual "feels well' and 
is the "picture of health," tomorrow he is a paralytic or a 
quivering corpse. 

So long as the albuminoid material in question remains 
in the plastic state it is borne from place to place in the 
blood stream interfering more and more as time progresses 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



with vital operations in general, and with nutrition and 
elimination in particular, the former fact accounting' for 
the increasing debility, and the latter for both, the low spe- 
cific gravity and the aforesaid evidences of intrarenal 
decomposition ; in case it lodges in or presses upon the optic 
nerve the vision is impaired or completely obscured, ac- 
cording to the extent of the infiltration ; in case it lodges in 
the capillaries of the retina, the pressure afforded by the 
on-coming blood stream compels the pent up blood and 
albumen to escape, producing the haemorrhage and the 
albuminous transudation that we see in the eyes of those 
who are involved in the toils of Bright 's disease. In the 
event that the crystalline lens becomes the seat of patho- 
genic infiltration, we have what is called cataract. In case 
pathogen blocks the lymph-nodes, the lymph is forced by the 
vis a tergo of the lymph-stream to escape into the subjacent 
tissues, thus producing dropsy. 

LOCOMOTOR ATAXIA. 

Locomotor Ataxia is attributed by medical writers in 
general to sclerosis of the posterior columns of the spinal 
cord. This is good as far as it goes, but it lacks a good 
deal of explaining the difficulty. It simply brings us face 



70 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

to face, as it were, with a question that no authority has 
answered, namely, what causes this hardening of the spinal 
cord? This apparently unanswerable question has found 
an incontestible answer in the proposition, that pathogen 
disables the spinal cord by insinuating itself between the 
various members or filaments thereof, and with sufficient 
force to interfere with both the nutrition and the action of 
some of the nerve fibres, while others are comparatively 
free and able, therefore, to respond to the mandates of the 
will, the result being that anarchistic performance of the 
muscles and nerves which is called locomotor ataxia. The 
thickening and the opacity of the pia mater and the 
arteries, and the tendon and visual reflex deficiences are one 
and all produced by the same agent and in the same way. 
The fact that eventually the cord becomes reduced in size, 
gray in color and firmer than normal, is attributable to 
dehydration of the offending infiltrate ; namely, pathogen. 
It would not be very far amiss to assert that locomotor 
ataxia is Bright 's disease minus albuminuria ; for it is an 
undeniable fact that they have several symptoms in com- 
mon, the more prominent being pharyngitis, a voracious or 
variable appetite, and the presence in the urine of the same 
kind of debris, tube-casts not excepted. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 71 

THE GERM THEORY EXPLAINED. 

As time advances and preconceived notions fade away, 
the medical profession will become more and more alive to 
the fact that PATHOGEN is that formerly unknown 
quantity in the etiologic equation which lies at the bottom 
of diseases in general and has been variously referred to as 
the "predisposition," the "susceptibility," and a "low- 
ered vitality" — producing these effects by interfering with 
both nutrition and elimination — and that it paves the way 
for the propagation and action of infective organisms by 
affording them a "suitable soil." It will then be seen that 
the discovery of pathogen has rounded out the Germ 
Theory in all the completeness and amplitude of a well 
established scientific proposition, as the writer contended 
and demonstrated, experimentally, many years ago. In 
short, it will be seen that pathogen is the universal cause ; 
that pathogenosis is the universal disease, and that a patJio- 
genolyte — an agent which will "cut," or liquefy, pathogen 
— is the universal remedy ; for. when thus reduced, this 
baleful substance will be sufficiently diffusible to permit of 
its being discharged through natural channels. 

Pathogen is known to science as serum albumin and 



72 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

other albuminous incumbents of the living organism, but to 
the writer as partially elaborated organic matter, as a 
derivative of those elements of ingesta which have for some 
reason proved refractory to the digestive capacity of their 
host; namely, Amylum, Gluten, Cellulose and the Fibroid 
Elements of flesh foods. Pathogen is the real cause of all 
morbid changes. The Spleen breaks up pathogen when it 
has reached a certain stage of concentration in passing 
through its trabeculae — as do the lymph glands — into glob- 
ular masses of plastic material called white blood cor- 
puscles. The expansion of CO 2 generated in their decay is 
the cause of the protrusion of a cell, afterward it resumes 
its former shape in obedience to that power that gives 
rotundity to various things — from the dew drops to the 
celestial spheres. Pathogen, which is of Amylaceous ante- 
cedents is transformed into glucose, which (being more 
soluble) is disposed of with comparative ease, but Pathogen 
derived from Cellulose, lignin and fibroid tissue is practi- 
cally insoluble in water of blood or water of any quality 
and temperature — hence it is discharged with difficulty and 
inflicts great damage upon the avenues of escape. But 
from less refractory substances as gluten, albumin and legu- 
min, is disposed of in the following ways: it is converted 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



into bile, catarrhal transudate, or pushed out of the circu- 
lation and stored in places offering the least resistance, 
forming tumors, or through the renal emunctory in the 
shape of serum albumin, as in Bright 's Disease, or by con- 
verting the carbon element into a carbohydrate (glucose) 
and discharging it through the kidneys, as in diabetes, or, 
converting the carbon into hydrocarbons (fat) and storing 
it in places until abstinence, febrile action or a more active 
life affords opportunity for the blood to take it to the lungs, 
where it is oxidized and discharged, or completely decom- 
posing it with the aid of infective organisms, and with the 
incidental effect of imparting color, type or distinctive 
character to the morbid process, as in the different infec- 
tions. In the disintegration of the leucocytes at different 
stages, the different foci become susceptible first to one 
dye and then another — at one stage taking on the stain of 
eosin, called eosinophilia ; at another methylblue, etc. — 
sometimes they undergo fatty degeneration and are called 
myelocytes — simply undergoing a process of hydrocarbon- 
ization, it being changed into a less dangerous thing, 
namely, fat. 



74 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

INFECTION AND IMMUNIZATION. 

The part that disease germs and other bacterial organ- 
ism perform in the grand scheme of nature is that of as- 
sistant in the disintegration of unstable and perishable 
forms of organic matter. Toxines are all soluble and can 
be easily removed, while Pathogen can be removed if at all, 
by the slow process of transudation, or by the still more 
wasteful, hazardous and painful process of inter-systemic 
combustion, and inflammation, causing conflagration in 
part of the body, and fever in the whole. Microorganisms 
are not parasites, but ferments — they do not act on healthy 
tissues but on the excretions, or tissue and materials which 
have ceased to live; and they assist in the removal of the 
material that clogs the circulation, thus conserving, not as- 
sailing, vital interests. Beware, not of diseased germs, but 
of the vile product of abortive digestion, Pathogen. When 
the body is practically free from leucocytes, albuminoid ma- 
terials commonly called serum-albumin, and hemialbumose, 
infection is absolutely impossible. No Pathogen — no dis- 
ease. Pathogen is the rubbish burnt out by the torches of 
infection; vaccination and serum injection, the result be- 
ing immunity. The benefits conferred by the animal ther- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 75 

apy, the antitoxines and the various seras is attributable not 
to the destruction of the germs, but to the proteolytic action 
of these remedies ; that is, to their ability to liquefy Patho- 
gen, thus removing the material upon which the morbid 
process depends. Pathogen is partially digested organic 
matter, that portion of the ingesta which had been suf- 
ficiently liquefied to enable it to find its way into the circu- 
lating system, but not enough to enable it to pass through 
the infinitely finer tissues of which the walls of the nutri- 
tive cells of living organism are composed; the digestive 
apparatus could not reduce it to a perfectly dialyzable and 
non-coagulable state. It is the material which has not been 
reduced to peptone. Pathogen makes the production of 
more Pathogen inevitable by locking up the gastric fol- 
licles and capillaries, producing gastric congestion and its 
train of evils. In the great majority of cases of marital 
infelicity, the parties to the conflict are more to be pitied 
than blamed, as the real cause of trouble is the inter-sys- 
temic nervous irritant, Pathogen, and they can be restored 
to their pristine loveliness by conciliatory advice and meas- 
ures to eliminate Pathogen. In a common cold the matter 
discharged was in the blood before exposure occurred, 
bringing on congestion, febrile action and finally transuda- 



76 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

tion. Constipation is due to the plugging of the capillaries 
of the bowel with Pathogen. 

In fevers the obstruction of cutaneous glands and capil- 
laries is the essential feature, though not the primary lesion, 
and the febrile effort tries to dislodge Pathogen. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 77 

CHAPTER* V. 

PATHOGEN IS THE UNDERLYING CAUSE OF ALL 
DISEASES. 

In Yellow Fever, owing to the lodgement of Pathogen in 
the hepatic ducts, the bile eventually is absorbed and be- 
comes putrid and dark in color and is vicariously dis- 
charged from the gastric capillaries in the stomach and 
ejected by emesis (black vomit). In inflammation the 
capillaries become obstructed by Pathogen and then exuda- 
tion of cells results. Epileptics all have the oral cavity 
inflamed and tumefied, also a ravenous appetite, the abnor- 
mal craving being due to the irritation, caused by the gas- 
tric obstruction. An epileptic paroxysm is the cumulative 
effect of the same condition, and the nervous tension due 
to long continued irritation, causes exhaustion of the peri- 
pheral nerves, a rush of blood upon the nerve centers, and a 
detonation of the nutrient matter of the centers. The 
Aura Epileptica is symptomatic of the fact that the vaso- 
motor system has become exhausted in consequence of the 
long continued attempt to maintain the circulatory balance 
while the blood is laden with plastic Pathogen, and that 
the blood is being forced by atmospheric pressure from the 



78 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

peripheral to central and cerebral regions with a paralyz- 
ing effect. Rheumatism is also produced by this fertile 
producer of toxic material. Hypertrophy, Atrophy and 
Obesity all depend upon a common cause. Hypertrophy 
is due to the interstitial pathogenesis, the damming back of 
blood, pathogenic infiltration and a defensive proliferation 
of tissue. 

NERVOUS DEBILITY, A MISNOMER. 

Neurasthenia is supposed to be due to loss of nervous 
energy, but the reverse is the case, as it is due to an in- 
crease of nutrition of the nervous system and a decrease in 
the muscular system. In every case there is evidence of 
gastric pathogenesis; blocking of the gastric apparatus so 
that the organ cannot properly prepare the food which the 
entire system requires, hence the nerves, being always first 
in time to act, play the part of the pig, gulping the greater 
part of the food and leaving the less active to take the little 
left. The muscles are similarly deprived of their just quan- 
tum of food, so that the peripheral circulation is poor, the 
superficial vessels are clogged with Pathogen and the 
greater part of the blood retires to the central regions, 
where the principal nervous centers are located, hence we 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 79 

have the malnutrition to the muscles and hypernutrition to 
the nerves, so that the weak muscles are dominated by the 
strong nerves, hence the misnomer Nervous Debility, as 
there is no such thing as nervous twitchings, it being mus- 
cular contraction superinduced by nervous irritation, due to 
Pathogen, the matchless disturber. The self command is 
due to the muscular and nervous systems being equally 
nourished. Fibrosis : In fibrosis the fibrin ramifies the 
remotest recesses of the circulation, adhering to the walls of 
vessels and forming an embolus perchance therein ; it wends 
its way through the vessel walls into the interstitial spaces 
of the lungs, liver and kidneys, also between the muscles, 
and eventually becomes inspissated and contracts, hence the 
wrinkled face, halting gait, and waning intellect we see in 
the progress of senility or premature old age — also the con- 
tracted kidneys, liver, lungs, etc. Fibrosis is due to the 
excessive use and imperfect elaboration of glutens, albu- 
mins and albimiinoids or cellulose — they are absorbed par- 
tially digested. A considerable portion of the food ab- 
sorbed before its arrival of complete liquefaction is trans- 
formed into fibrinogen bv the liver. 



80 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

PATHOGEN CAUSES CANCER. 

Cancer occurs at the time of life when the system vitally 
should be in the height of its integrity, and in the last ten 
years it has increased over twenty-five per cent. The 
plastic material in all malignant neoplasms is Pathogen. 

Absence of hydrochloric acid in gastric carcinoma shows 
it is of gastric origin, and the so-called cancer cells are par- 
tially digested fibrous tissue, lignin and cellulose, materials 
that the spleen would not prepare for elimination by con- 
verting into fibrinogen, whose presence in the circulation is 
at the bottom of metastases, or blocking of the glands and 
vessels, and the recurrence of cancer after extirpation is 
due not to the leaving of cancer cells in the body, but to a 
continuation of the gastric disorders, and the production 
of Pathogen, evolved from the fibrous tissue of meats, the 
cellulose of grains, and the lignin or wood fibre of the 
coarser vegetables. Cancer is known as a cell-like particle 
of some kind, but unknown as a product of disordered di- 
gestion. The faucial surfaces are always swollen, inflamed 
and coated with catarrhal transudate, showing that similar 
conditions exist further down in the stomach, as in gas- 
tritis, as the slimy transudate coats the peptic glands, caus- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 81 

ing deficiency of pepsin and hydrochloric acid. In short, 
the disabled stomach only partially digests the albuminoids. 
Dyspepsia is sometimes disguised, going on just far enough 
to prevent fermentation. Authorities have been misled by 
the second subdivision of the cell theory in cancer. The 
melanotic element of cancerous growth and cachexia is due 
to pathogenic obstructions of the hepatic glands, and the 
consequent inability of the liver to dispose of the bile, 
which imprisoned bile permeates the circulating system, 
wends its way to the cancerous growth, infiltrates the skin, 
producing dark pigment and cachexia. 

DISEASE OF THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM. 

Heart Disease has baffled Pathologists. High blood 
pressure is the immediate cause, but the real cause or more 
remote factor has not been discovered. The high blood 
pressure causes the valves to leak and the walls of the 
heart to dilate, and the cerebral vessels to burst. Although 
apparently dissimilar, Diseases of the Heart, Bright 's Dis- 
ease and Cerebral Diseases are due to the same cause. 
Serum Albumin has always been erroneously thought to be 
the essential element of the blood. The albumin discharged 
from the kidneys in Albuminuria is Pathogen, and is re- 



82 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

sponsible for the high blood pressure that underlies cerebral 
hemorrhage and the various Heart troubles ; ( 1 ) the pass- 
age of digested and partially digested foods is constantly 
going on, while the discharge of waste matter is seriously 
impeded; (2) the impediment is serum albumin which 
blocks the glands and capillaries on which elimination de- 
pends, as shown by the imperfect condition of the skin, 
liver and bowels, and more especially the low specific grav- 
ity of the urine; (3) the high degree of plethora is estab- 
lished, which means high blood pressure and tension in the 
vaso-motor nervous system; (4) the blood is rendered so 
thick and viscid by Pathogen (serum albumin), and impure 
by retained waste matter, that it is impossible for the heart 
to propel it through the peripheral capillaries; (5) the 
blood then naturally recedes to the internal regions where 
the vessels are larger and more patulous; (6) this crowding 
of the blood produces such changes as Aneurism of the 
Aorta, Dilatation of the Heart and weakening of the 
valves ; ( 7 ) the time comes when the energies on which the 
vaso-motor tension depends will be exhausted, then a rush 
of blood from the periphery inwards (due largely to atmos- 
pheric pressure), which will reveal the weakest spot, as in a 
paralyzed or ruptured Heart or Cerebral vessels. The 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 83 

troubles are all referable to gastric trouble and to the 
accumulation of Pathogen in the system. The theory of 
compensatory hypertrophy of the heart is erroneous, as all 
hypertrophied hearts are degenerated and weakened. The 
dilatation of the heart is due to vacuolation, or hollowing of 
the muscle fibres, as in Aneurism, Varicose Veins and 
Cystic Diseases of the Kidneys, Liver and Spleen ; ( 1 ) from 
the increased tax upon its energies the heart finds it difficult 
to force the viscid blood through the peripheral circulation ; 

(2) the walls of the capillaries are besmeared with Patho- 
gen so the cardiac structure fails to obtain proper nutrient ; 

(3) the muscle cells made empty become elongated, the re- 
sulting effect being dilatation of the muscle walls and relax- 
ation of the valves. Cystic disease of any organ is due to 
the same causes. Scurvy, another unexplained mystery, 
where the blood extravasates beneath the skin — producing 
a fungous appearance of the gums, loosening of the teeth, 
blood serum in the joints, and other hemorrhages, etc., is 
due to the fact that at the various points at which the dis- 
ease makes its appearance. Pathogen has blocked the capil- 
laries, and the blood is driven against the obstruction with 
sufficient force to cause a leakage to occur in the previ- 
ouslv starved and debilitated vessels, causing the hemor- 



84 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

rhagic condition called Scurvy. Impotence : It is well 
known that erections depend upon the filling of the Cor- 
pora Cavernosa with blood, which must pass through the 
delicate capillary terminals and scarcely less delicate sys- 
tem of spiral shaped arterioles which have their origin in 
the Pudic artery, namely the helicine. As the Pathogen 
laden blood is unable to enter the Corpora Cavernosa, the 
result is Impotence. In the female it is due to Pathogenic 
obstruction of the Ovarian capillaries of the Fallopian 
Tubes. DIABETES MELLITUS has increased 1459% in 
the past fifty years. The Diabetic like the Consumptive, is 
literally consumed by the things he consumes. The good 
appetite of a Diabetic is a specie of irritation and craving 
similar in its origin and ultimate consequences to that of 
inebriety. In Diabetes Pathogen blocks the liver and 
Pancreas. The Liver is unable to reduce fibrin and amyl- 
aceous materials to bile, hence we have Glycosuria. The 
Pancreas is unable to produce enough juice to neutralize 
the acids of food, hence materials are absorbed which 
change the blood to abnormal acidity, which is intensified 
by the souring of the diabetic sugar. The partially digested 
material must be gotten rid of, hence its carbon element is 
hydrated (diabetic sugar) and discharged through the Kid- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 85 

neys, and finally the Carbon of any kind of food is trans- 
formed into sugar, as in the extreme cases the carbon of 
albuminoids is turned into sugar. Starchy foods produce 
more sugar in the diabetic than the nitrogenous, because 
starch granules are harder to digest than albumen. This 
explains the well known fact that avoidance of starchy 
foods does nothing more than modify the output of sugar, 
the patient remaining diabetic in spite of the avoidance. 
The time finally comes when the patient cannot digest 
albuminous foods — then he discharges albumen. Event- 
ually the material clogs the renal glands and capillaries, 
producing the same effects produced by a foreign body; 
irritation, inflammation and necrosis, the exfoliation being 
the lining membrane of the uriniferous tubules. Glycogen 
is not the producer, but the thing produced, being the first 
step of hydration of the partially digested foods; glucose 
being the finished product, and its destiny is not nutrition, 
but elimination, as glucose is not found in the nutrient 
cells of the muscles and nerves. The excessive thirst is 
nature's provision to flush the circulating system, and to 
get rid of its burden of undigested foods, the carbon of 
which has been turned into glucose, and excessive urination 
is the means employed. BRIGHT' S DISEASE : The cur- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 



rent opinion is that chronic nephritis is from first to last a 
disease of the Kidneys — that the escape of albumen is due 
to injuries that the morbid process has inflicted upon the 
renal glands and uriniferous tubules, and that the debility 
is due in most part to the escape of the most nutritious ele- 
ment of food, Albumen. BRIGHT 'S DISEASE is from 
first to last a disease of the Stomach. The' food is changed 
into what is called hemialbumose, it being sufficiently dif- 
fusible to get into the circulation, but incapable of getting 
into the nutrient cells. As earthy matters of the soil must 
be completely liquefied to subserve plant life, so must food 
be completely dissolved. The Kidneys are called upon to 
ward it off and do so in the shape of serum albumin. The 
system wants to get rid of the useless material, albuminous 
foods, and the attempt to make up the loss by prescribing 
albuminous foods, serves to make matters worse. The 
Pathogen which clogs the capillaries in the Kidneys pro- 
duces first congestion, then inflammation and exfoliation of 
the lining membrane of the uriniferous tubules, necrosis of 
the renal structure, retention of urine, intra-renal decompo- 
sition of urine and absorption of toxines, producing Urae- 
mic Poisoning. In case the stomata of the lymphatics be- 
come clogged with Pathogen, as they often do in the pro- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 87 

gress of Nephritis, the lymph remains in the interstitial 
spaces and accumulates, producing: oedema. In the event it 
lodges in the lymph glands, it will be forced by the oncom- 
ing stream to escape in the interstices of adjacent tissues, 
producing indirect interstitial oedema, and one or the other 
are responsible for the dropsical aspect of every disease. 
If it lodges in or presses upon the optic nerve the vision 
becomes impaired. In the retinal capillaries the pressure of 
the circulation will cause the pent-up blood to escape, pro- 
ducing retinal hemorrhage, or force the albumin out of the 
circulation producing the albuminous patches that occur, 
and if albumin finds its way into the crystalline lens of the 
eye, opacity or cataract is produced. The vitreous humor 
of the eye is similarly bedimmed by the same thing. 

PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. 

The Consumptive is actually consumed by the things he 
consumes. The cause of Consumption is gastric Pathogene- 
sis. The lodgment of Pathogen in the gastric follicles and 
capillaries, the curtailment of the digestive fluids, the les- 
sening of peristaltic action, gastric inflammation then a de- 
cline of the vital energies, a more and more frequent coryza, 
the establishment of catarrhal conditions, a shrinkage of 



88 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

motor mechanism and muscular structures, a clogging of 
the Pulmonary capillaries, the propagation of infective or- 
ganisms, the formation of tubercles, a partial decomposi- 
tion, transudation and expectoration of the offending ma- 
terial, the starvation and sloughing of the pulmonary tis- 
sues, followed by death. 

The theory that the sputum of the consumptive is the 
debris of wasted tissue has never been established on ra- 
tional or experimental lines. How can we account for the 
material discharged in coryza, etc., acknowledging the retro- 
grade tissue metamorphosis to be baseless? It is due to 
gastronomic errors or indiscretions. The patient becomes 
emaciated on account of his inability to digest foods, and 
becomes pale, not from want of iron or Haemoglobin in 
the blood, but to a lack of arterial blood in the peripheral 
cells and vessels, due to the clogging of the capillaries. 
Pathogenic obstruction of the lungs has a worse effect than 
upon the muscular structures, as the pulmonary organs are 
centrally located, and the consequential hyperaemia, stagna- 
tion, starvation and pent-up heat (due to the decomposi- 
tion of Pathogen) together with the destruction of tissue, 
both of which cause internal conflagration, finds exter- 
nal expression in the shape of hectic fever. The skin 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 89 

of a tubercular person becomes pale and dead, as its pores 
are reduced in calibre or closed. The lungs must take on 
the extra work, and there is also added the resistance to 
respiration due to the contraction of the skin. The accumu- 
lation of Pathogen in the capillaries of the lungs has a par- 
tial effect of Anaesthesia, which renders the patient oblivi- 
ous to the situation. The absorption of Oxygen (the pre- 
requisite to feeling, as well as to action) is greatly dimin- 
ished because of the lodgment of the Pathogen and sputum 
in the air cells, so that the sensorium cannot properly per- 
form its functions. The senses are blunted by the inhibi- 
tion of Oxygen, and the victim of the disease is oblivious of 
the impending crisis, and so profound is the reigning 
Anaesthesia and so buoyant the resulting hope, that he 
plans for the distant future, but dies tomorrow. The over- 
burdening of the blood in the pulmonary capillaries in 
Phthisis is due in the most part to the peripheral capillaries 
becoming besmeared with Pathogen, and a large percentage 
of the pulmonary capillaries are completely occluded. The 
enfeebled Heart cannot force the blood into the former or 
through the latter, hence the damming back in the Pulmo- 
nary vessels. If the patient exerts himself to an inordinate 
extent or gives way to the oft recurring morbid appetite, a 



90 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

sudden engorgement of the vascular system might take 
place, attended by several bad results. The pulmonary ves- 
sels are in a region where the atmospheric pressure forces 
the blood to be driven against the obstruction, producing a 
rupture in the diseased capillary, again Pathogen in the 
incarcerated blood often decomposes and is forced from the 
blood vessels into the air cells, causing diminution of res- 
piration, thus cutting off the Oxygen which is greatly 
needed to produce vitality for the expulsion of the sputum. 
Again it may be forced in the same way from the capilla- 
ries into the interstitial spaces or parenchyma of the lung, 
where it undergoes those changes of form and consistency 
which have mystified the world for centuries. (1) There is 
inspissation or dehydration ; next the spheroidal concretion 
or formation of tubercles; then the blending of these into 
larger masses and followed by caseous degeneration ; next 
and last into calcareous matter, it being nothing more nor 
less than the earthy constituent of Pathogen, every vestige 
of its organic constituency having been obliterated in the 
progress of systemic decay. Again, owing to the resulting 
stagnation and innutrition, both the blood and its depend- 
encies, the subjacent tissues pass into decay, producing cav- 
ities, etc. In every case of Consumption Pathogen was at 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 91 

once the predisponent, the continuant and the determinant. 
"When we find throat and rectal troubles in chronic disease, 
is it not reasonable to suppose that there is trouble midway 
in the alimentary tract, as every case of Consumption is 
accompanied with gastric disturbance, which becomes more 
pronounced as the disease progresses ? How can Ave explain 
that the grand outflow of sputum forms a grand aggregate 
of several times the weight of the body, if not to Pathogen ? 
The elimination of Pathogen is foremost of all the remedial 
requirements. A Consumptive suffers from both hot and 
cold; a hot interior and a cold exterior. Pathogen is the 
fuel and the microbe the spark, and as the forces eliminant 
are constantly decreasing while "resistance Pathogenic" is 
constantly increasing, it follows in the absence of appropri- 
ate medication that a fatal result is only a cpiestion of time. 
PURPURA VARIOLOSA is nothing more nor less than 
malignant Scorbutus (Scurvy) complicated and greatly 
aggravated with Variola. Imagine when this widely dis- 
tributed Pathogen becomes impregnated with the greatest 
of all decomposing agent, the contagion of Variola. Behold 
the sudden transformation of the Pathogen wending its 
way through the capillaries of all parts of the body into 
a thick coagulum; see the heart throbbing with fearful 



92 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

power and rapidity, trying to dislodge the offending ma- 
terials, obstructive and infectious, and to keep the stream 
in motion ; see the blood piling up against the coagula ; 
see the vessel walls yield to the internal pressure and the 
blood spurt into the different tissues of the body, then 
picture the Pathogen ablaze with the fire of inflammation, 
as it is decomposed at a fearful rate and with much heat — 
then you know what a fearful thing Pathogen really is. 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 93 

CHAPTER VI. 

IN CONCLUSION. 

(1) The fact that the white blood corpuscle looks like 
a cell, does not necessarily mean that it is a cell; (2) that 
it is a very grave mistake to suppose, as originators of 
current teaching have done, that the leucocyte is differ- 
entiated into component parts of the living organism; (3) 
that the differentiation hypothesis has never been sub- 
stantiated by the observant of such a change; (4) that the 
hypothesis in question is discredited by the fact that the 
cells of "Granulated Tissue" spring directly from the 
tissue on which they are formed — they do not first exist 
as independent organisms and then attach themselves to 
previously existing tree or plant ; ( 5 ) that the kindred 
doctrine of vital duplication as applied to a leucocyte is 
nothing but a matter of disintegration, as irregularities 
thereof surely indicate; (6) that the "Amoeboid Move- 
ment" of a leucocyte is not animal locomotion, but the 
result of disintegration; (7) that the protoplasm from 
which the white blood corpuscle is formed is not living 
protoplasm, but dead and practically useless organic mat- 
ter, namely, Pathogen; (8) while it is an incontestable 



94 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

proposition that plants and animals are made of cells, it is 
equally incontestable that those cell-like particles we find 
in the blood are not living cells bnt differing forms of 
Pathogen ; ( 9 ) it is evident that we have fallen into the 
error of mistaking similarity for identity, and that our 
blundering involves a case of mistaken identity of the 
highly excusable order. 

THE NATURE AND MODUS OPERANDI OF 
TREATMENT. 

The principal factors in the eradication of the sup- 
posedly incurable diseases are : 

1. An attenuated solution of those powerful yet harm- 
less liquefacients which are known to science as proteolytes, 
and which have the capacity to reduce to the perfectly 
dialyzable state, not only the catarrhal and fibrinous ma- 
terials that encumber the systemic channels, but the prac- 
tically solid substance of which "tubercles," tumors, and 
"cancer cells" are composed. 

2. That gentle yet powerful form of energy which 
annihilates time and space in the celerity of its obedience 
to the will of man, and which is called galvanic electricity. 
I have devised a combination of devices which makes it 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 95 

possible for this wonderful agent to lend its electrolytic 
and cataphoric powers to that of the above named lique- 
facients, carrying these agents in the sweep of its flow 
from the surface of the body where they are applied, into 
the deep-seated areas, where the material on which the 
morbid process depends is located, the result being a resto- 
ration of the health. 

But cataphoresis as ordinarily applied has proved to 
be somewhat unsatisfactory, owing to the resistance af- 
forded by the skin. This structure is so dense that it is 
very nearly impervious to fluids in general, and to medi- 
cated solutions in particular. Here is where the first call 
for relaxation is made. The pores of the skin must be 
opened to the fullest extent so that the remedies may easily 
pass through this structure and onward to the deeper tis- 
sues, where the pathogen which we desire to liquefy and 
remove is located. 

The relaxation of both the integument and the ob- 
structed vessels is effected by means of a relaxing tempera- 
ture, which ranges from 105 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit, the 
happy medium being 110 degrees. That is to say an 
attenuated, and. therefore, penetrating solution is applied 
over the affected parts by means of linen pads. 



96 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

Patients are treated once every week day, while resting 
on a couch, or operating chair. One of the said pads with 
its electrode is applied over the stomach and the other 
beneath that part of the patient's anatomy in which the 
other lesion is located. In diseases of the kidneys and in 
ataxia of the lower extremities, the lower pad is placed 
between the twelfth dorsal and the fourth lumbar verte- 
brae ; in ataxia of the upper extremities it is placed be- 
neath the "cervical enlargement." The treatment lasts 
twenty minutes, and in order to secure the best results, the 
polarity of the current must be reversed at the end of the 
first ten minutes. The remedial agents thus applied are 
carried by the sweep of the powerful, but almost imper- 
ceptible galvanic current, from the linen pads into the 
deep-seated tissues, the result being the reduction of the 
viscid obstruent (pathogen) to a perfectly diffusible state 
— a change which enables the body to discharge it through 
the natural outlets. 

The measures above described, important as reason and 
extended experience have shown them to be, are not suf- 
ficient, as a rule, to meet the requirements of the disease, 
unless it be of very recent occurence. For, as a rule, the 
blood vessels are shrunken and the circulation is unbal- 



MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 97 

anced, the periphery receiving an inadequate blood supply, 
while the internal parts are correspondingly hyperaemic. 

For these reasons the skin, the bowels, the stomach, the 
kidneys, and the liver, are all sluggish in their action and 
behind time in the performance of their respective duties. 
All of these organs must be brought into complete and 
timely action. The drugs usually employed in such cases 
are to be regarded as a necessary evil. For, while they are 
not, properly speaking, curative, they are practically indis- 
pensable, it being necessary to spur the organs into action, 
while other and more effective measures are being em- 
ployed. 

In locomotor ataxia the foregoing exercises must be 
supplemented by others which are calculated to revive the 
spinal nerves. In a word, both the nerves and their motor 
dependencies — the muscles of the affected limbs — must be 
not only freed, but strengthened and re-trained. These 
ends are attained by either manual or mechanical massage, 
or by both together. Mechanical massage is administered 
to the spine by such machines as the Victor Vibrator, and 
to the other structures by apparatus devised with the view 
of securing the best results without producing nerve-rack- 
ing sounds. 






98 MEDICAL PROBLEMS EXPLAINED 

In short, I would respectfully submit, that in the course 
of years that it has been in process of verification the 
above described treatment, together with such dietetic 
restrictions as the foregoing theory of pathogenesis natur- 
ally implies, have proved sufficient to cure the majority 
of those cases of diabetes, Bright 's disease and consump- 
tion, which were under treatment for a reasonable space 
of time, and a good percentage of cases of those still more 
problematic diseases which are called, chorea, epilepsy cata- 
lepsy, heart-disease and locomotor ataxia. 




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